


Life is a Cruel Master

by Iaveina



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Character Death, F/M, light gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 09:27:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1030045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iaveina/pseuds/Iaveina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One minute they were joking around, the next the actions of one stranger tore him from their lives. She never expected it to hurt so much. Companion piece to sowrongbutsowrite’s Death Is a Fair Mistress. Barbvin. Sorta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life is a Cruel Master

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Death is a Fair Mistress](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/30180) by sowrongbutsowrite. 



> Rating: NC17 (Character Death, blood, light gore)
> 
> This fanfiction is based of sowrongbutsowrite’s story [Death Is A Fair Mistress](http://sowrongbutsowrite.tumblr.com/post/52654886505/death-is-a-fair-mistress-prologue). I’d say that it’s absolutely required reading unless you don’t mind being spoiled.
> 
> …Either way, go and read it because it’s FREAKING AMAZING AND DESERVES MORE LOVE.
> 
> Or more crying at, either way the feels.
> 
> I wanted to try my hand at writing angst and Hann tentatively suggested I try doing this…so here is my attempt. I think I failed for the most part but oh well. Part of the speech at the very end is taken from Death Is a Fair Mistress
> 
> Bad ending is bad. I really need to work on those. I also need to work on romance.
> 
> Note: The fanfiception lives on, [check this out](http://goeff.co.vu/post/60552904436)! And [then this](http://slowdowndear.tumblr.com/post/60811941477/and-everything-in-between-hurts)!

It was surprising how one single action, conceived in the depths of a troubled mind and carried out in a fit of madness, could impact so many lives in an instance. How it could grip, ignoring the fragility of the human within its grasp, at the very core of a being and leave destruction in its wake without a care; destroying the barest hints of a fledgling future that would now never come to pass.

To say that it was unexpected would be an understatement. Nobody could have guessed that, when they walked into the building that filled so many people all over the world with joy, the day would have unfolded as it did. Perhaps, if they had known - if they had even guessed what would be - they could have been able to stop what happened.

But they couldn’t, and the woman who strode into the building - purpose in her footsteps, her eyes fixated on the closed door that stood between her and the life behind with the loaded gun in her grasp - who unleashed a fire of bullets in the small, overcrowded office would forever be ingrained in the memories of those nearby for eternity.

The day, like all days, started out like any other.

“Gavin, what did my crackers ever do to you?”

Gavin, sat leisurely in Adam’s empty office chair pulled up alongside Barbara, gave her a cheeky grin as he effortlessly crushed the bagged crackers with his index finger. He looked her in the eye, hazel depths twinkling with mirth, and she found it difficult to be truly angry with him. “I’m only protecting your honour Barbs, they were saying mean things about you.”

Barbara sighed in exasperation, folding her arms. She turned in her chair and gave the Englishman a long-suffering look. The grin on Gavin’s face grew and she regretted the words that flew from her mouth before she could stop them. “What sort of things?”

Gavin, spurned on by the encouragement, leant back in his chair dramatically. “Oh y’know,” he continued with a sigh. “The usual things about Canadians and mooses-” he stopped, raising an eyebrow quizzically at her. “Meese? Meeses? What is the plural of that anyway?”

“Those _mean_ crackers, it’s a good thing I have you as my Knight in Shining Armour,” Barbara playfully fluttered her eyelashes, hands clasped before her, and Gavin puffed his chest out heroically. “You goof!” Barbara laughed loudly and smacked him on the arm.

“Ow! Jeeze you Canadians hit _hard_ ,” Gavin pouted, rubbing the spot on his skin that she’d hit. Barbara carefully scanned his face for any signs of real hurt, but smirked as she saw his lip twitch

“Damn right we do, we may look all sweet and innocent but we will fight back.”

“If you two are quite finished,” Geoff interrupted, suddenly appearing in the doorway. He leant lazily against the doorframe with an amused look plastered on his face. “We’re about to do a Let’s Play, get your ass in here.”

Gavin laughed sheepishly as he pulled himself to his feet. He wheeled Adam’s chair back over to his desk and waved a hand at Geoff. “Go on, I’ll be there in a mo.”

“You’d better be or I’ll send Michael in,” Geoff retorted with a wink. He pushed himself off the doorframe, nodded cheerfully to Barbara and headed back towards the Achievement Hunter office. Gavin shuffled over to the door but hesitated at the threshold.

“Are you doing anything tonight?” He asked, a tentative note in his voice that made Barbara look up from where her gaze had returned to her screen. Her hand, outstretched towards her computer mouse, froze.

“Er, Kara and I were going to see a movie tonight…” She trailed off. Something indiscernible flickered across Gavin’s face and she hastily continued. “But I’m free tomorrow, what did you want to do?”

Gavin laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand whilst the other played with the handle of the door. “I was thinking about going to see a film too, if you don’t mind going to the cinema two nights in a row…”

“I don’t mind! I’d love to.”

Gavin grinned and ignored Michael’s shout for him to hurry up. “You pick the film and let me know okay?”

Barbara nodded, widely returning the grin. “You’re on.”

She watched as Gavin made his way across the lobby to the Achievement Hunter office, a spring in his step, and disappear behind the door as it closed. She rolled her eyes, shaking her head fondly, and pulled up the website for the local cinema with a small smile.

Let’s Plays were usually loud affairs, and this one was no exception. Barbara was used to drowning out the excited yelling; putting her headphones on and turning up the volume of whatever music she felt like listening to usually did the trick. Today the music of choice was, unashamedly, The Backstreet Boys and as she bopped her head in time with the music she tapped out a message on her phone, pressing send with a flourish before returning her attention back to her work.

Her phone buzzed almost instantly in reply.

\- _That film? Really? I’ve heard it sucks._

She laughed as she typed out a reply. She pressed ‘Send’ with a satisfied grin.

\- _You said I could choose xx_

Gavin’s reply came a moment later.

\- _Damn you woman_

\- _You love me really xx_

Gavin’s reply to that never came, instead she could hear the other Achievement Hunters yelling at him for being on his phone instead of paying attention to the Let’s Play they were recording. She laughed, setting her phone back on her desk and sending a fond look towards the door.

Work soon beckoned, and she found her attention almost entirely focused on the digits and figures that swam across her screen. As busy as she was she missed the stranger entering the building. The stranger who quietly slipped, unnoticed and purposefully, into the Achievement Hunter office.

The sharp ‘click’ of the lock sliding into place went unheard; drowned out by the music that pounded in her ears.

The shots, however, were startlingly loud. Shattering violently into her world without warning.

She was standing in the lobby before she realised she’d moved, watching with wide, unbelieving eyes as Burnie pounded desperately on the door. The silence from within the room, a stark contrast to the good-natured teasing, was sickening and she couldn’t help the dread that filled her, the cold seeping into her very being and poisoning her thoughts.

“OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR!” Burnie yelled, fists beating against the dark wood. He spun, wild eyes scanning the small crowd that had gathered in the lobby. “Gus! Where are the spare keys?!”

Gus didn’t reply, instead he sprinted down the corridor and up the stairs two at a time. Barbara ducked back into her office, trying to drown out Burnie’s continued attempts to get somebody in the office to open the door, and grabbed her phone from her desk. She pulled up her address book, quickly scrolled down the list and hit the call symbol next to Gavin’s name.

“C’mon Gavin,” she whispered as the dial tone blared in her ear. “C’mon.”

“ _Hello, you’ve reached Ga-_ ”

She threw the phone back down and walked backed into the lobby as Gus appeared, breathing heavily, with a ring of spare keys clasped tightly in his grip. Burnie snatched them from him without a word, looked through the keys and thrust the correct one into the locked door. He pushed the door open.

The metallic smell of blood mixed with the acrid odour of gunpowder hit her senses simultaneously and she gagged. People yelled and screamed around her, unintelligible in their shock, and she watched as Burnie leapt through the doorway, Gus at his heels.

“Oh my God!”

“What the fuck happened?!”

“Someone call an ambulance!”

“ _Michael!_ ”

Barbara numbly turned, barely registering Lindsay’s desperate cry as the brunette pushed passed her and into the room, collapsing to the floor next to Burnie. The older man was knelt down with his hands firmly pushed against Michael’s side, glistening crimson already coating his skin, and he was speaking rapidly to someone that Barbara couldn’t see. Jack? Ryan?

From across the room her gaze locked with Ray’s; a combination of pure terror and shell-shock reflected in his eyes and was clearly visible on his pale face. He had his back pressed against the far wall but despite this Barbara could see the flecks of blood and something else that decorated his front and as he looked at her she could sense a shift in his demeanour; he reminded her of a lost little boy.

She took a step forward towards him, an almost-motherly urge to wrap him in her arms and make the bad things go away overtaking her. It was clear as soon as she stepped into the room, over the unfamiliar body that lay in the doorway, that there was something more, something terribly wrong. Burnie’s hands hadn’t moved from Michael’s side, Lindsay was kneeling beside him, leaning down to whisper in the unconscious man’s ear as she gripped his hand tightly. Burnie was speaking hurriedly to Jack, the redhead in a similar position with trembling hands pressed against Ryan’s shoulder, Gus beside them. Ryan himself was conscious, just barely if the way his eyelids were drooping was any indication, and completely pale; a blue tint to his lips. Her eyes scanned through the pandemonium before catching sight of the figure hunched on the floor, undisturbed by the events that were unfolding around him.

Everything went numb. The sounds of panic around her dulled and she saw nothing else, her chest tightening as the overwhelming feeling of her insides turning cold filled her up. She took a shaky step forward, her legs barely cooperating, and wished to every being and deity she could think of that what she was seeing was a lie.

Geoff slowly looked up at her, staring blankly through her as if she wasn’t truly there, unable to process the events that had passed and the events that were happening. Tears ran freely from his eyes, falling like rivulets through the already established tracks, through the blood that lingered on his face, and seeing him so broken caused tears to well up in her own eyes.

She covered her mouth to try and muffle the sob that escaped her.

Lying unmoving on the floor, with his head in Geoff’s lap, was Gavin.

She fell to her knees beside the older man, letting out another - louder - sob that she didn’t bother to try and hide as she saw the full extent of the Gavin’s injury. The path of the bullet through his skull was clear to see, leaving with it enough devastation that if she hadn’t known who he was she wouldn’t have been able to recognise him, and it took every ounce of her willpower to not hurl. However she could see the glassly, lifeless eyes that stared unseeingly into the distance and she felt the tears fall from her eyes; the heavy weight in her stomach twisting painfully and stealing her breath away. She couldn’t look at him.

Geoff’s body shuddered with sobs. “G-gav?” He stammered desperately, tears falling onto the carpet and mixing in with the crimson that rapidly stained it. “C’mon man, you’ve gotta be okay.” His voice, full of anguish, cracked partway through the sentence and he brought up a hand to wipe his eyes; his body shaking and a look of pure loss in his eyes. Barbara’s eyes burnt and she turned her head away.

“Geoff?” Gus appeared beside her, recoiling at the scene before he could stop himself. “No no _no_.”

“ _Gus_ ,” Barbara cried, reaching out to grab his arm, nearby Lindsay wailed as flashing blue lights filtered in through the blinds and blinked against the far wall. “ _Do something_.”

She had never seen the look on Gus’ face before; a look of utter defeat and indecision that went against everything he was and she visibly watched his resolve crumble. Paramedics rushed into the room, taking over from Burnie and Jack in their attempts to save the lives of their fallen co-workers and it took one sad stare and the subtle shake of a head for Gavin’s fate to be confirmed.

Barbara turned, no longer bothering to stop her weeping, and pulled an unmoving Geoff into a hug. The older man didn’t move, didn’t register the trembling arms around him, didn’t register Ryan and Michael being loaded onto stretchers and rushed out into awaiting ambulances, never realised that this would be the last time he’d see Michael alive and he sat in silence, the true impact of the loss of the man who’d nearly been like a son to him just beginning to sink in.

Around them the company struggled to come to terms with what had just happened, and it was something they found themselves battling to cope with for a long time to come; Lindsay’s surprise pregnancy proved to be a blessing, but also served to be a constant reminder of the fiancé she had lost and the man who would never know his child.

A small part of Barbara envied her, the small part that spurned her into watching old videos on Youtube at 2 o’clock in the morning with her headphones in just so that she could hear the voice of her best friend again. The tears had long dried, leaving almost-permanent red rings around her eyes as she stared blearily at the screen, drinking in his face, his mannerisms, the silly almost-made up words that he constantly sprouted. A dull ache made itself at home in her chest, paralysing her emotions and dulling her mind like anaesthetic until the realisation that she would never again hear his voice talking to her, never get to share a joke with him or see him smile crippled her, forcing heart rending sobs to tear from her throat and tears to spill in waves.

“They’re doing it again.”

Burnie’s voice was hollow, almost emotionless and if Barbara could summon the energy to feel anything other than that she wouldn’t have been surprised. They stood at the corner of Interchange Boulevard, across the road from the building that both of them were trying to find the courage to go back into, overlooking the crowd surrounding the gates. Flowers, soft toys, even a handmade Tower of Pimps here and there, littered the space in front of the gates - left by a multitude of weeping fans who were keen to show that their loss didn’t just affect the company itself, but touched the lives and hearts of millions across the world.

And try as she might she couldn’t help but hate it.

“I wish they’d stop,” she whispered dryly, her voice straining. She wrapped her arms around her midriff, hugging herself tightly. Burnie’s jaw clenched.

“I’ll talk to the guys. Get them to move it away. Move it all away.”

“They’ll just bring more.”

She could almost hear Burnie’s teeth grind together, equally red-rimmed eyes looked to her. “We’ll get them to stop.”

She didn’t question how he’d do it. But she didn’t question much anymore.

The pain eventually dulled to the barest whisper, allowing everyone to continue living their lives the best they could; ignoring the absences that crept into their minds when they felt at their lowest, the absences that hinted at a life that could have been and brought feelings long buried and barely acted upon in life to the surface.

Six years passed uneventfully and when, on one sunny day in late autumn, the brakes on a truck failed and it ploughed unhindered through a set of traffic lights, barrelling into the side of Barbara’s car with all the force one would expect from a runaway vehicle the transition from life into death was quick. Painless even. One moment she was sat in her car, concerned about how late she was for work, the next-

“Barbara.”

She was stood on the side of the road, staring into the bright hazel eyes of the man who had been on her mind for years. Gavin’s smile was sad, even as he stepped forward with a hand outstretched and she reached out in disbelief to grasp it, and he pulled her into a tight hug.

“I’m so so sorry,” he whispered, the warmth of his body surrounding her, relaxing her. She pulled back and looked up at him in confusion.

“What-”

He placed a finger on her lips, shaking his head slightly as he shared a look with the woman behind him. The woman who she didn’t recognise but instantly knew.

 _Death_.

She couldn’t help the panic that rose within her, that caused her to look at the crushed remains of her car with wide eyes and try to stumble out of Gavin’s hold. His grip was firm, but gentle.

“Barbs, it’s okay,” he began, a sheepish look appearing on his face at the incredulous look that she shot him in return. “Well, obviously it’s not _okay_ okay. What I meant to say was-”

“You’re not doing a very good job of this Gavin.” Death looked slightly amused, and Barbara swallowed hard.

“I’m dead.”

Gavin nodded, running a hand gently down the side of her face and playing with the loose tendrils of hair that had escaped from her ponytail. She lightly smacked his hand away, and the two of them shared a grin at the familiarity of the action. “You are….but it’s not too bad. We get our own afterlifes and we can still watch the living…I’ve been watching you a lot. Er, that sounds really creepy, I didn’t mean it like that I-”

Barbara put a finger on his lips, raising herself onto her tiptoes slightly to deliver a light kiss. “I love you, Gavin,” she breathed, speaking the words that had taken her years to realise. Gavin blinked at her in surprise. “I don’t care how stupid you are or how much of an asshole you can be, these last six years have been Hell.”

Gavin’s look of confusion gave way to a bright smile, and he bounced slightly in excitement before returning her kiss with enthusiasm. She giggled, and Gavin rested his forehead against hers. “Then let’s make the rest of eternity Heaven, alright?” He whispered, entwining his hands with hers.

Somewhere deep inside her, hidden in the part that she’d closed off all those years ago, the numbness lifted and, gently following Gavin’s lead, they walked into the afterlife.

Together.


End file.
